European Tour - 2019

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New Year, Time for a New Thread.

EuroTour makes it 2019 Debut this week with the Abu Dhabi HSBC Classic Presented by EGA.  Next week is Dubai and the following week is the New Saudi Event

Guessing that the EGA Presentation got Abu Dhabi a promotion to a Rolex Series event.


DJ and BK are playing in Abu Dhabi.  So is Fleetwood, Stenson, Oosthuizen, RCB, Barnrat, Poulter, and Oleson

Despite the the Hired Guns from USA and Rolex Promotion, Abu Dhabi will have its lowest OWGR rating in 10 yrs.  Pelley can't be happy about that.

kwinigolfer wrote:https://www.europeantour.com/european-tour/news/articles/detail/the-2020-european-tour-schedule/


Open de France vs WGC Round 2.
Among other things.

Why? Double RC points again? Or because it was its traditional date?

I'm never wrong wrote:

kwinigolfer wrote:Among other things.

Lee Westwood NOT going for the Olympics

And the top 3 British players (or how many it is?) not playing the British Masters. Strange scheduling - or maybe they realised they wouldn’t play anyway.

-Kwini mentioned and linked to European Tour 2019-2020 Schedule announcement... Here's the graphic so you can see events side by side...  I put this in the schedule thread as well.. and will update as more on other tours as they become known...

Lots of events moving around again in an Olympic year... Irish Open back to May... French Open back between the Open's playing opposite the WGC-Memphis... As of now, 2 events appear removed from the schedule.. Perth Super 6 and Belgian Knockout... One more event in England supposedly confirmed to be added (Aug 9), but not yet officially announced...

pedro wrote:

I'm never wrong wrote:

kwinigolfer wrote:Among other things.

Lee Westwood NOT going for the Olympics

And the top 3 British players (or how many it is?) not playing the British Masters. Strange scheduling - or maybe they realised they wouldn’t play anyway.

I really don't understand putting the British Masters opposite the Olympics... especially considering there are 2 other open dates where there would have been no conflict...

robopz wrote:One more event in England supposedly confirmed to be added (Aug 9), but not yet officially announced...

[pedant mode on] The event schedule says UK, so not necessarily England [/pedant mode off]

Arnaus must be in the reckoning for rookie of the year? Everyone seems to be talking about Kitayama and Mcintyre

Mount Juliet is the rumoured Irish Open venue next year for what it's worth

I'm never wrong wrote:

robopz wrote:One more event in England supposedly confirmed to be added (Aug 9), but not yet officially announced...

[pedant mode on] The event schedule says UK, so not necessarily England [/pedant mode off]

Ian Poulter "invests" his winnings in cars. for those who want to have a look at what he's got click HERE to see a video from the vlogger Shmee150

.Poulter playing Italy next week and not defending his Houston win from 2018.

The venue for the French Open was not announced in the schedule.

That would continue a trend where European Ryder Cup Host course used to host a European Tour Event, but after hosting, do not host any more.

K-Club
Celtic Manor
Gleneagles

and now Le Club Nationale.

I'm never wrong wrote:Ian Poulter "invests" his winnings in cars. for those who want to have a look at what he's got click HERE to see a video from the vlogger Shmee150

That Shmee is a grade a knob.

Rose vs Poults - Fashion Faux Pas

Thomas Pieters round in par and under 2 hours today. Beat that Super!

Wow there’s a start from Smith, 6/6 birdies to start, been playing great stuff of late, can’t quite seem to string 72 together this season, overdue a win though,  maybe this week?

Edit: Maybe not after a car crash on 13

Good to see Colsaerts win today. Hopefully he can make like a sanitary towel and get into Ryder Cup contention again.

If you haven't seen this collection of videos from the Miracle at Medinah, take a look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jPaQXMkKpw

The Dude!

Amazing, missed NINE cuts this year by one stroke each time - doubtless missed a few others more convincingly but still.
Silliest thing he ever did was try to play the PGA Tour and feel he had to play thru injuries to keep his card. Which he failed to do anyway.

I'm never wrong wrote:Thomas Pieters round in par and under 2 hours today. Beat that Super!

He was like John Cleese from the Ministry of silly walks!

Anyone fancy playing in the 2020 British Masters at Close House? There is a one off tournament for entry. £125. Click HERE

INW

Interesting, if I was as low as super I would definitely give it a shot.

Odd that it doesn't say what level of professional is ineligible. Will the field just be challenge tour players and a few + handicapprs?

If super enters we should all agree to go and watch.

McLaren wrote:INW

Interesting, if I was as low as super I would definitely give it a shot.

Odd that it doesn't say what level of professional is ineligible. Will the field just be challenge tour players and a few + handicapprs?

If super enters we should all agree to go and watch.

I wouldn't stand a chance Mac. I would probably be balloted out of even getting into the qualifying by 3-4 shots. A scratch golfers application would most likely go straight into the bin.

The Links Trophy in St.Andrews has a cut of around +3.5 these days. Amateur golf level is absurdly high, although I could qualify for that by winning R&A Gold Medal. I could think of at least a dozen players from my area who might have the handicap to get in from the self loving twitter brigade.

You can enter Open Qualifying if you are Scratch or lower, but you might as well set fire to your money. Peter Finch embarrasses himself every year by going for the "Quest for the Open" and a few of the St.Andrews boys try it, but their games simply don't travel well and they are humiliated because they are used to having false handicaps due to only playing St.Andrews where there is little punishment for bad shots.

We were discussing how bad TOC design was in that regard the other day. For example. One of our group shanked off the tee on 8. Still hit the green. Poor design.

super_realist wrote:
One of our group shanked off the tee on 8. Still hit the green. Poor design.

In my book, that's a good design!

Schwab is absolutely destroying the par 5s this week! -15 for 13 Par 5s so far this week! I know it is helped with 5 of them instead of the normal 4 but still! Crazy good

Did he break off branches on the 12th with his practice swings? Mark Roe was a bit concerned when commentating.

Eddie Pepperell disqualified for running out of golf balls.....kept hitting them into a pond on the 4th hole (his 13th)

6-man play-off, this should be fun!

Hatton's garden a bit rosier most likely as he's assured a Masters invite.

Looking at the bunkers at Sun City they are raked like they were at Wentworth. (Or vice versa). That is: slopes are smooth and flat area raked. I’m not keen. It means balls more likely to roll to the flat area. Prefer all of the bunker to be raked. It’s a hazard/penalty area after all.

Well played Tommy Fleetwood. Hopefully he can afford a haircut now.

I keep expecting Fleetwood to fall away but he keeps proving me wrong, which is good because I quite like him.

With the final event of the Euro Tour Schedule upon us... maybe now is a good time to look at the revised Euro and PGA Tour schedules and how they worked out...  Specifically the FALL portion of the schedule and the Rolex Series events.  

Bottom line 1st... Comparing on an event by event basis to the same event the prior year... overall the Euro events played since September 1st have been a mixed bag resulting in about the same overall field strength average as last year... see second chart below...



European Masters and Dunhill Links saw big increases in field strength, but French Open (losing Rolex status and moved to a crap date) and Portugal took huge field hits.  

But the good news is all the FALL Rolex series events had at least marginal increases or held their own.  In fact the only Rolex series event for the entire year to lose field strength was Abu Dhabi falling 4 points from a 52 to 48. That was countered with the Irish Open up 4 points from 38 to 42, while the Scottish Open remained at 48.  Italian Open and Turkish Open were both up 6 points. Nedbank was still very disappointing field at 36, but at least that's up a couple of points from last year. Dubai R2D final looks like it's gonna be the same 52 as last year.

Another big improvement was the field for the BMW PGA... You don't see it in the 64 OWGR being same as years past, but the SUBSIDY for the event was way less this year.  If not for the 64 point flagship guarantee, the BMW PGA would have been 48 level last year (a 16 point subsidy)... this year it would have been 56 (an 8 point subsidy), by far the strongest event on the Euro Tour. (excluding the co-sanctions).

So in the end... if the objective was to strengthen the Rolex Series... it worked.  The ET was successful in finding "soft spots" on the PGA Tour in which to put all of it's 8 Rolex Series events opposite.  The big increases for the Euro Masters and Dunhill Links was a bonus.

Thanks for the analysis robo, OWGR points might be more important than cash when it comes to attracting the better payers now, they get rich wherever they play.


In other ET news Rory claims he isn't bothered that his late sign up to the ET means he doesn't have enough points to contend for the R2D title this season. Had he been a member from the start of the season his WGC and Masters finishes would have counted towards his final tally.

European/Asian Tours postpone the Hong Kong Open (originally scheduled for next week) to early next year, or maybe even takes a hiatus for this season... Due to the civil unrest there...

https://twitter.com/EuropeanTour/status/1197079254124695552?s=19

Kinda surprised they only just got round to cancelling that.

Rory on the 18th today. 287 yards to about 6 feet with a 3 wood. Holed the eagle putt. One of the best shots of his career.

Bit of a rough day for McIlroy so far.

Some great shots into 18 this week.

I'm never wrong wrote:Rory on the 18th today. 287 yards to about 6 feet with a 3 wood. Holed the eagle putt. One of the best shots of his career.

Yes, stunning.

When you pick out the flag stick in the distance you really get an idea of actually how far away he was. The distance control as well, just magical.

Don’t think Lorenzo-Vera appreciates the subtlety of the English language being French. Dropped the F-word casually into his post match interview. Tim Barter has to hurriedly apologise. https://twitter.com/molloyjoe/status/1198225635975553024?s=21

I'm never wrong wrote:Don’t think Lorenzo-Vera appreciates the subtlety of the English language being French. Dropped the F-word casually into his post match interview. Tim Barter has to hurriedly apologise. https://twitter.com/molloyjoe/status/1198225635975553024?s=21

That's allowable since MLV is French.

Excellent finish, tight all the way to the end. Glad for Rahm in a way that he gets to emulate Seve but gutted for MLV who seemed daunted to be in such lofty company at the start but rallied and almost made it.

What I can’t understand is why the Sir Henry Cotton trophy for Rookie of the Year isn’t presented at the end. The Amateur winner at The Open gets his trophy before the overall winner, so why can’t the Rookie get some chance for adulation? Especially as it was young Robert!

IMO, Young Robert should not have won.

MacIntyre had ZERO wins and Guido Migliozzi and Kurt Katayama both had two wins.

GPB wrote:IMO, Young Robert should not have won.

MacIntyre had ZERO wins and Guido Migliozzi and Kurt Katayama both had two wins.

I tend to agree, however the criteria for "rookie of the year" is not how many wins you have, it's how far up you finish in the rankings.
Therefore Fat Bob showed more consistency than Katayama. He also had multiple top 10's, 2 or 3 second places and a top 6 in The Open.

Was it Fowler who won "Rookie of the year" with zero wins too?

Rickie won by a player vote over Rory in 2010

And yes, Rory won a tournament that year, but Rickie finished ahead of him in the FEX.

But, IMO, Rickie won the player vote because enough players thought that Rory was not "true" rookie.

Rickie was on Tour via Q-School, and was vulnerable to the shuffle and not exempt into the premium events, yet.

on the other hand, Rory was a Top 10 player at the end of 2009. He was exempt for every tournament he wanted to enter. He had a huge competitive advantage over the "true" rookies who were not exempt into WGCs and Majors.

A couple of years later, the tour amended definition of a rookie. Rory would have been defined as a Rookie in 2010 under the new definition.

GPB wrote:Rickie won by a player vote over Rory in 2010

And yes, Rory won a tournament that year, but Rickie finished ahead of him in the FEX.

But, IMO, Rickie won the player vote because enough players thought that Rory was not "true" rookie.  

Rickie was on Tour via Q-School, and was vulnerable to the shuffle and not exempt into the premium events, yet.

on the other hand, Rory was a Top 10 player at the end of 2009.  He was exempt for every tournament he wanted to enter.  He had a huge competitive advantage over the "true" rookies who were not exempt into WGCs and Majors.

A couple of years later, the tour amended definition of a rookie.  Rory would have been defined as a Rookie in 2010 under the new definition.

It's a stupid award anyway, as we've already been through, like all awards.

super_realist wrote:

GPB wrote:Rickie won by a player vote over Rory in 2010

And yes, Rory won a tournament that year, but Rickie finished ahead of him in the FEX.

But, IMO, Rickie won the player vote because enough players thought that Rory was not "true" rookie.  

Rickie was on Tour via Q-School, and was vulnerable to the shuffle and not exempt into the premium events, yet.

on the other hand, Rory was a Top 10 player at the end of 2009.  He was exempt for every tournament he wanted to enter.  He had a huge competitive advantage over the "true" rookies who were not exempt into WGCs and Majors.

A couple of years later, the tour amended definition of a rookie.  Rory would have been defined as a Rookie in 2010 under the new definition.

It's a stupid award anyway, as we've already been through, like all awards.

With the multiple tours and globetrotting players, this award is particularly stupid.

Major development on the ET: players will be able to wear shorts for the tournament- not just practice or pro-am days. Don’t know if this is just for the Alfred Dunhill tournament or permanent. Temps set to rise to 40C or 104 in old money.

I'm never wrong wrote:Major development on the ET: players will be able to wear shorts for the tournament- not just practice or pro-am days. Don’t know if this is just for the Alfred Dunhill tournament or permanent. Temps set to rise to 40C or 104 in old money.

High time INW.
It should be extended to the entire tour and majors if golf wants to be more inclusive and modern. Would a player have been DQ'd if he were to wear shorts before this?

I can't imagine why anyone would ever want to wear trousers in a British summer let alone in some of the tour stops on the European Tour. Fat lumps like Shane Lowry and Bob Macintyre must be pleased about this.

It would also give us the chance to laugh at Botox's sparrow legs.

Super

Describe what your legs look like?

Like Andy Murray Mac.
I'm constantly active, walking 10km plus a day, running 50k a week, rowing, taking stairs etc.

Any chance of some photo evidence?